


The Hot Dad Mix Tape

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: The Unit
Genre: Crush, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Missions, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mack can handle a lot of tough situations, but a teenage girl might be too much for him this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hot Dad Mix Tape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melissima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melissima/gifts).



Mack turned the corner, rifle up, and gave a nod to Hector. Counted one, two, and then three, as Hector opened the door and Mack entered, looking straight into the eyes of the man standing behind the young girl they’d come here for. She was motionless, eyes fixed on Mack’s, unafraid even with a .45 at her temple and a man screaming in her ear. He was dimly aware of Hector moving into the next room, silent as the grave. 

The girl moved her eyes to the left, twice, and Mack gave her the slightest nod, then fired, putting a nice hole in the captor’s forehead before he dropped to the floor. As the man went down, he shouted, “One in the room.” 

There was a shot, then Hector opened the door that connected to the room on their left. “Not anymore, but thanks for the warning.” He grinned.

Mack went toward the girl, who eyed them coolly, clutching her earbuds, as she said, “About time.” Mack was not often surprised, but he opened and closed his mouth a couple times, then barked out a rough laugh. She reminded him of Lissy in that moment, all sass and attitude and about the same age; there would probably be a similar soft center inside, but the outside was tough as gator skin. So it was a bit of a shock when she slumped to the floor.

Mack knelt down, slung his rifle to the side, and lifted her up as she blinked a few times. Dehydrated, he was sure, and probably hadn’t had much to eat; put that together with a terrifying situation and it was no wonder she collapsed. Turning to Hector, Mack nodded to let him know she was okay. Hector slapped in another clip. “I’ll clear the rest of the house.” 

Putting his attention back on her, he said, “Our sincere apologies for making you wait.” He smiled as he picked her up and carried her to one of the settees that ringed the library. Mack liked rooms with lots of books, they made for good protection when the bullets started flying, and a lot of old, solid furniture meant great places to take cover. “Yasmin. Did they hurt you?” He turned his attention to the rest of the team and said over comms, “Subject is secured. Hammerhead’s clearing the rest of the floor.”

She stared up at him, a questioning look in her eyes. “I know your name because your dad sent us.”

Something in her demeanor changed at the mention of her father, a slight shift of her mouth, and the sass evaporated. “Is he all right?” He wondered if she knew what her father had been up to all these years, deep undercover, putting himself at risk.

Mack hesitated. He rarely wavered on anything, but he didn’t exactly know what to say to a girl this age -- the truth might bring a freakout or a tantrum, neither of which would help them get to their exfil easily. “He’s been shot.” Sometimes it was best to just rip the Band-Aid off.

Yasmin’s hands clenched her iPod. It amused Mack that her captors had let her keep it. Kidnappers these days. 

“Is he...dead?” Her big brown eyes shimmered with tears, and Mack sat beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“He’s alive. But he’s hurt, and we need to bring you to him. Do you think you can do it?” How would he talk to Lissy or Jen in this kind of situation, what words would soothe them? If he’d learned anything as a dad, it was to ask instead of tell, let them rise to the occasion on their own. This one may have seemed a bit more worldly than his own, yet she was still a teenage girl.

“Are all those men dead?” Her accent was a little bit English, a little bit something else he couldn’t peg. She wouldn’t have spent much time in Pakistan, once her father had begun his deep cover work. Mack turned her face toward his with a light touch on her chin, getting her to focus on him and not the bodies lying on the floor.

“Did they hurt you?” Mack asked gently. “You handled yourself pretty well there. Most people wouldn’t be able to keep their wits about them in that kind of situation.”

“Hah. No. They didn’t do much other than hit me a few times and yell a lot. They locked me in this library and threw my iPod at me. Told me to just listen to my music and keep quiet. Threw some packets of crisps or biscuits at me every once in a while. Using the toilet was the worst part, because that man--” she looked in the other direction again “--wouldn’t let me go alone.”

If his daughter had been taken like that, Mack would have been out of his mind. Some missions, you didn’t mind the risk, because you could relate so strongly to them. The guys who used kids got his blood boiling most. 

Mack noticed then that Yasmin’s hands were shaking. She looked down at them in curiosity, as if they didn’t belong to her, and flexed her fingers a few times. “They killed my tutor. They just shot her in the head.”

He undid his ruck and vest and gave her the canteen and some energy bars. “Drink this, and eat these. It’s not exactly fine dining, but you need some food and water. And I want you to put this on.” She drained half the canteen in one long gulp.

Though she took the vest from him, she eyeballed it suspiciously. “You must be joking,” she said with the same exasperated tone Lissy so often used on him in the worst of her “Oh, Daaaaaad” moments. But at least she tore into one of the energy bars as she did it.

“Not negotiable. We have to get you out of here and then to a plane. It’s not always as easy as it sounds, and there’s likely to be more company coming.” 

As if he’d heard, Hector entered the room. “We might have another welcome wagon.” Mack raised his eyebrows at her, then joined Hector at the window. In the far distance a large black SUV moved at a fast clip along the narrow road. These old English estates with few trees or large hills were great for vantage points; from this floor you could see the roads all around.

“Betty Blue, you got those outbuildings cleared yet?” Mack asked, and Grey responded with a terse, “Almost done.”

“Tick tock,” Mack said. “Top, we got possible tangos coming up on the northwest entrance,” he added. He peeked out from behind a heavy velvet curtain, sweeping his gaze over the well-manicured grounds. As he watched, the SUV turned at the hedgerow ringing the property. If Jonas was on the ground floor and they stayed up here, they could probably pick off more than a few of them before they got close to the house.

“We do indeed,” Jonas answered, voice sure and steady.

“Could be someone who works here,” Hector said behind Mack.

Yasmin popped her head between them and said, “That’s the same kind of car they were driving when they took me.” She was remarkably casual about that, as if it had occurred a long time ago. Mack put his hand on her shoulder. 

“Put the vest on, and stay away from the windows -- get over there under that desk.”

Her “oh really?” look made him want to laugh, but he bit it back. “I bet you can pick them off if that shooting earlier is typical. It’s like one of those things you see in a movie that people can’t actually do in real life.”

“Well, that’s the thing about bad guys,” he said as he guided her to the antique desk, a nice solid barrier in case they got stuck. “They shoot a lot, but they don’t always hit the things they’re trying to.” He tightened the straps on the vest, comically oversized on her slender frame, and gave her arm what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “We, on the other hand, train every day so that we don’t miss.”

“If I wear your armor, what will you do?” she asked, curling up under the desk.

Mack knelt down, pushing his rifle out of the way, and smoothed her long black hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear, something he did with Lissy all the time. He figured he had only a few more years in which his daughter would allow that sort of intimacy from him; soon enough she’d be pushing him away, blaming him for the problems that had splintered their family, resentful of his work, railing at rules and boundaries. And he wouldn’t be able to blame her, or take the high road when she stayed out too late or snuck around with boys he told her not to see. 

“I don’t often wear one anyway. The point is to not get shot.”

“Have you ever been shot?” 

“Couple times. But I got better.” Her smile brought one to his own lips, just the way Jen and Lissy could make him smile no matter how bad things got.

Hector cleared his throat, and Grey’s voice cut through on the comms. “Stable’s cleared, last bad guy down. I think that’s all of ’em here.”

“Yeah, but now we have new ones joining their friends,” Hector observed. Mack went back to the window as the black SUV pulled up. Jonas reeled off instructions as men piled out of the car in a steady stream. 

“Christ, how many are there?” Mack said, “It’s like a freakin’ clown car.” He raised his weapon and picked off the first one; Hector picked off one behind him. Another one fell, probably Jonas’s shot, but the rest scattered. It would have been so much more convenient if they’d beelined back to the SUV, but no such luck. Now they’d have to actually do some work to get out of here.

He listened to Jonas give them the next play, and he and Hector both said “Copy that” at the same time. 

“What does that mean, anyway?” Yasmin asked, and Mack turned back to her, brows raised. He couldn’t remember anyone being so chatty on a rescue op; usually they were too traumatized, too scared, or too confused to do much of anything except follow along and stay mute.

“It’s a holdover from the olden days,” Hector answered, “when you had to write down what you received by radio and show it to your commanding officer. I think.”

“He’s the brains in this outfit. I’m just the pretty face.” Mack pulled her up from the floor. “Okay, we’re going to the ground floor, regrouping, and we’ll take you out as a team. You’ll need to follow my instructions, all right? Do everything I say, when I say it. It’s gonna get loud. You can ask me questions later, just do what I tell you exactly as I tell you now.”

Yasmin nodded and slipped her hand into his. She was tall for her age, but thin and willowy, and her hand felt like a child’s in his, so tiny and delicate. But he was pretty sure there was steel rebar in there. “Can I ask you one question now before we go?”

“Just one.”

“Do you have kids, is that why you’re being so nice to me? You act more dad-like than my own dad.”

Mack was at a loss as to how to answer it. He supposed, when he thought back on so many of his missions, that he’d never really taken to a subject quite like this, except for Pari. Missions were about compartmentalizing, about distancing yourself and getting the job done. You didn’t have time for emotions; caring too much, or not caring enough, were things that could get you killed. The focus was on your team and your job. He had never truly come back from what happened in Iran, and his home life was slowly unraveling precisely because of that. It was impossible not to see an object lesson in that. 

You didn’t really make friends in this job. You had your two families, the men you served with and the one at home, and that was it. The one thing they never told you when you signed up was how very lonely it was. Go in, do your job, get out, and don’t feel anything along the way. 

“I guess...Well. I have a daughter your age, and you remind me of her. She’s a firecracker. So are you.”

Yasmin adjusted the vest, took her hand away, and grinned at him. “Wow, that must be weird.”

“What?”

“Having a hot dad. That would be so awkward. I mean, I love my dad, but no one would ever mistake him for a crush object and none of my friends would come visit just to get a glimpse of him.”

Hector put his hand up to his mouth, trying to stifle his laugh. Mack pointed a finger at him and said, “You. Shut up.” That did nothing to stop Hector’s cackle. “Shut. Up.”

He gave her a scowl just for good measure, but Yasmin was unimpressed. 

It was so hard to talk to his wife these days, he and Tiffy seemed unable to do anything but argue over their uncertain future, but a part of him wanted to tell her this story when he got home and listen to her gales of laughter.

“I want you to stay behind me, don’t move from position. Hang on to my shirt. Hector here will have his back to yours. We go slow and steady, okay?” He waited for her nod. “Boss, we’re coming down.”

She was a trouper, he would give her that; she did exactly what he asked of her. When they’d regrouped with Jonas and Carlito, she stayed in position there, not flinching when they fired on their targets and their targets fired at them. Or tried to; they weren’t exactly pros and it made for easy pickings, almost disappointing after such a big build-up. 

Hector leaned over to Jonas when the smoke cleared and said, sotto voce, “Someone has a crush on Dirt Diver.”

Jonas grinned. “Well, who wouldn’t?” Mack did his best to ignore them both, focusing on sweeping the area as they made their way out of the building.

Once they made it to their own SUV, Jonas and Hector got up front, Mack and Yasmin in the back seat, and Grey took the back like the family labrador, watching their tail.

Mack kept his eye on her as she munched another energy bar and played with her iPod. “What are you doing?” he asked eventually. It didn’t seem to matter where in the world you went these days, kids all had their faces in some gadget or another.

“I’m going through my songs to mentally make a playlist for you. I guess in your day they’d have called it a mix tape.”

“Hey, hey, a mix _disc_ , I’ll have you know, I’m not that old. Even my beat-up old truck has a CD player.”

Grinning, she kept her eyes focused on the iPod. Jonas and Hector smirked in the front seat. “So what happens now?” Yasmin asked.

“We get a flight out of here, and take you to your dad in the States.” She glanced up at him, as if she wanted to ask a question but wasn’t sure what was allowed. “He did us a big favor.” That seemed to be what she needed to hear.

“He hates the way things are at home. The way they don’t want girls to have an education, the religious intolerance. That’s why we went to France at first, and then he sent me to school in England. But he’s gone all the time, even when I’m supposed to be home with him. I hardly ever get to see him anymore. I wasn’t even sure if he’d know they took me.”

That was like a sharp blow to his chest. What did it look like to his girls when he left for months at a time? Did they think he didn’t care? “It doesn’t mean he loves you any less. He probably didn’t want to be gone.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Yes, I am.” This girl was downright scary.

“But your daughter has a mum, right? That’s one thing I don’t have. She died when I was young.”

“Two daughters, actually. But yeah, they do have a mother.” He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Jonas watching him. Everyone wore that look of pretending they weren’t hearing the conversation around them, but of course they would hear every word. So he said as quietly as he could, almost whispering in her ear, “But we’re like two runaway trains crashing into each other. So sometimes having both parents isn’t always a benefit.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted it. What a dumbass thing to say to a girl who’d lost her mother.

“I don’t believe that,” Yasmin said firmly, her eyes sparking with anger. “You can only get away with saying that because she’s alive.” She looked back down at her iPod, shifted back into the carefree teen. “Anyways, you’re a bit of a DILF, so she’d be mad to give you up.”

From behind him Carlito let out a snort, and Mack could see the other two stifling laughter up front, Hector biting his lip and looking out the window, Jonas glancing repeatedly down at the dashboard. 

“Jesus, you’re _thirteen_. You can’t say things like that.” He had no problem with risking his life to rescue her, but he damn sure didn’t want to get arrested for interfering with a minor. “You really are like my daughter, saying whatever appalling thing comes to mind.”

“Fourteen, please. And my age doesn’t make it not true. Look at all of you with your sexy jobs and your fit bodies. Any woman would have you. Plus _you_ have that gravelly sex-voice thing going on.”

Mack rubbed his forehead, felt his cheeks going red. It had been a very long time since anyone had made him blush. Even wearing Betsy Ross drag for Lissy’s school project hadn’t made him blush. “You should stop talking now. Might as well get some rest while you can.” He glared into the rearview at Jonas and Hector.

“Are they dads, too?”

“He is,” Mack answered, pointing at Jonas. “No one will have these other two.” Grey gave another snort in the back. “At the base you can meet Bob, who also has a daughter.”

Yasmin put the iPod away and leaned into him, so he put his arm around her shoulder. Briefly, she closed her eyes, but then sat upright and looked at him. “I don’t even know your names.” 

Mack glanced at Jonas, who gave him a slight nod in the mirror. “Master Sergeant Mack Gerhardt, at your service. And that’s Jonas, and Hector, and the dog in the back is Charles.”

“Mack,” she said, and then promptly fell asleep against his side.

At the air base they met up with Bob Brown, who’d been handling the logistical end of things. When Yasmin met him, she blurted out, “ _Merde,_ are all of you hot dads?”

Mack tried to glare sternly at her and not smile, but she shrugged it off. Bob blinked at them both, bewildered. “Am I missing something?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Mack said, and hustled Yasmin away. He tapped her shoulder as they pulled up in the hallway. “You do realize I’ll never live this down? That they’ll get mileage out of this for years?”

Her smile was damn near angelic. “Of course.”

“I think I’ll just call you fireball from now on. On account of how badly you’ve burned me.”

“A code name? Brilliant! I’ve always wanted one.”

Yasmin slept for most of the flight back, waking once or twice to try to watch a movie or eat a meal, but never lasting too long. As well as she’d handled the whole thing, it had taken a toll on her, and that teenage nothing-fazes-me attitude could only last so long. Once they arrived in Washington, there was an unspoken understanding among the team that Mack would take her to the hospital while the rest of them headed back home. She was more somber now, simply following along where Mack took her, doing what he told her to do. He thought of how different Lissy and Jen were, how Lissy questioned everything where Jen was only too eager to please. He saw both those aspects in Yasmin.

At the door to her father’s room, Yasmin threw her arms around Mack and said into his chest, “Thank you. I know I’ve been a bit of a pain. But I thank you and my father thanks you.”

He kissed the top of her head and said, “Give him some time to get to know you again. It’s going to be an adjustment. Dads and daughters...we have our troubles.” Standing back, he tried once more to impress her with his best dad-like frown. 

Every time he came home his girls were more grown-up, he’d missed more of the moments most fathers got to treasure. It didn’t lessen his pride or his love for them, but the foundation of their relationship was missing important pieces. And days like this only made him more acutely aware of how easily his family could crumble into a heap of rubble.

Yasmin pushed the door to her father’s room open. Mack nodded at the door guard and told him, “Take care of her, please.” The guy looked at him like he was nuts.

 

A couple months later, Mack came home from work and Lissy told him there was a package for him. She seemed impressed by all the French stamps on the padded envelope, the multiple crossed-out locations and approvals it had gone through. She put her arms around his waist while he opened it. These days, Mack needed as much love as he could get, so he wrapped one arm around her and held her tight, pulling first a CD and then a note out of the envelope. 

The CD was marked “Hot Dad Mix Tape,” and he burst out laughing. The note read: “I pegged you as a country rock sort of lad, and I didn’t have much of that, but I hope you’ll enjoy this anyway.” He looked at the list of songs, the first of which was the classic “Rescue Me.” Grinning like an idiot, he turned the note over to find a PS: “If you’re no longer married when I’m 18, watch out.”

“What’s on the CD?” Lissy asked. 

“It’s from someone I worked with a while ago,” Mack answered. “Operation Fireball.” He didn’t want to show it to her, because he knew that title would embarrass the hell out of her. If someone had told him at that age that his mother or father was attractive, he would have wanted to shrivel up and die. Mack shoved the note in the jewel case and put the disc in his gear bag. “Let’s go for a drive and listen to it, what do you say?”

She picked up his truck keys and let him take her hand on their way out the door.


End file.
